


what can grow without the dew

by jdphoenix



Series: drabble collections [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, One Shot Collection, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:46:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4139967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one shots about what might happen to Jemma after the end of season two.</p><p>[So far all of these are Ward/Simmons except chapters 2, 8, 9 (Jemma/Lincoln), and 5 (Jemma/Skye friendship).]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the price (grant/jemma)

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this collection comes from the song "Tumbalalaika." Wikipedia gives a slightly different translation of the line than the one I learned, but the answer is still "a stone."

Jemma is warm and comfortable and feels like she could sleep for days. She cuddles closer to … to …

“If you keep going in that direction, you’re gonna have to commit.”

Her eyes snap open at the sound of Ward’s voice. She can feel his laugh reverberating through his abdomen, thanks to her head’s current location: in his  _lap_.

“Just saying,” he says.

She scrambles back on the couch. It really  _is_  Ward, in the flesh. And he looks … relaxed. He’s wearing a t-shirt and sweats, like he’s ready for a long night in. The room they’re in is cozy. Armchairs, fireplace, scenic pastoral on the wall. Around her ankles is the thin throw blanket that was covering her while she slept. She recognizes it as her grandmother’s.

“Jem,” Ward says, questioning. He reaches for her, his arm stretching across the cushions. The way his fingers move over the back of her hand is distressingly familiar, and the way her skin tingles under his touch is even more so. He’s touched her like this before. He’s touched her in other ways.

The fight ekes out of her. Consciously, she still knows she should fear him, but she can’t touch it. She can’t even remember why. 

“Bad dream?” he asks, sympathetic.

Yes, that must be it.

He glances once at his cell phone before pocketing it. “Let’s go to bed, okay?”

Bed? With him?

The fabric of her grandmother’s afghan is soft under her fingers.

Who else would she share a bed with?

She turns her hand over in his, allowing him to pull her into the bedroom. They pass an impressive view of the city on the way - they’re on the top floor, secure enough that there’s no reason to worry they’ll be attacked - but she barely sees it. She sees her great-grandmother‘s tea set in the kitchen, her childhood Nancy Drew books filling a shelf in the hall, the bedroom done in the warm wood tones she prefers. 

This is her home.

They prepare for bed side-by-side. He checks his phone too many times. She teases him about it. It’s easy. It’s familiar.

When he climbs into bed, she stops to pull her shorts off. “You’re sure?” he asks, but she can already see the signs of his arousal. “You’re not too tired?”

“No.” She wants this. Wants him to touch her in ways that aren’t just comforting.

He holds her close, his arms strong, safe, secure. He fills her up. 

She holds him tighter. She wants more, wants everything.

_You can have this._

Grant is still in her arms, still hissing from the way her teeth pull on his ear. He doesn’t seem to notice her hesitation or the voice that’s caused it.

A rock - not a rock - hovers behind him, past the foot of the bed. It watches her.

She wants, childishly, to ignore it. If she pretends it isn’t there, it can’t affect her. She tightens around Grant, feels the way his neck muscles strain in response. Her eyes do not leave the rock.

She feels cold. The rock is doing this to her, sapping the warmth from her body, from the room-

No. Not from the room. The rock is in a box. And she is-

This isn’t her life.

_You can have this._

She remembers other glimpses of other lives. This isn’t the first that it’s shown her, not by a long shot. There was Fitz, restored to his former self. The one where the rock laid out all the knowledge of the human organism - and all its offshoots - right there at her fingertips. HYDRA destroyed utterly. The far reaches of the universe, hers to explore as she wished. Her friends safe. The means to protect the Earth from alien threats forever. Ward dead at her feet.

His hips move beneath her, lifting her slightly above him. One of his hands is flat against her back, steadying her. The other is more gentle, mirroring it on her stomach. He smiles.

_Serve us. You will have what you desire._

She doesn’t. She doesn’t  _desire_  this.

A rock can’t laugh - it can’t speak either, for that matter - but she can feel its amusement. 

How many possibilities did it show her? How many has she gotten lost in the way she’s been lost in this one?

She doesn’t need to hear the rock’s answer to know.

_None._

She holds Ward’s face between her hands. His expression isn’t soft or guarded the way it was on the Bus. She’s not being offered the illusion she knew for so many months. This is the real Ward, all sharp edges and cruel actions. And she’s not fool enough to think this is a SHIELD facility, even if the tentacle patterns in the wallpaper don’t give it away. 

“I don’t want this,” she says.

Ward’s expression falls. Something inside her twists at the heartbreak she sees there, but she doesn’t take it back. She won’t be his mistress or his whore or his-

“Wife,” he says, bringing her left hand to his lips to kiss. The diamond flashes.

That doesn’t change anything. Why would she want him or  _any_  of this?

It all floods back, every possibility the rock has forced on her. The Fitz who ended up angry at her for changing him without his consent. The answers that were useless because SHIELD would never allow her to act on them due to their source. A world resentful at being saved. And, most strongly of all, that hollow feeling in her chest when the life left Ward’s eyes. The way her entire body felt weak, as lifeless as his.

_You do not want him dead._

It almost sounds sorry.

She doesn’t want him dead, but she does, apparently, want him. He smiles and draws her into a slow kiss. She wraps her arms tight around his back as he moves inside her, faster, deeper.

She wants him.

She can have him.

“What do you want me to do?” she asks, the question falling across Grant’s face in warm gasps.

The rock doesn’t answer immediately, but she can feel its satisfaction. She thinks she can even see it in Grant’s sharp smile. Both fade as she finishes, the pulse of her own body too much for her mind to maintain the illusion.

When she comes back to herself, she’s on the concrete floor outside the rock’s enclosure. She has work to do.


	2. jello wrestling (jemma/lincoln)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came from the prompt Jemma/Lincoln + “Does this mean what I think it means?” “Jello wrestling!”

Lincoln meets Jemma on her way out of the makeshift medical ward. It was actually supposed to be a cafeteria once the Playground’s population grows large enough, but it’s finding a purpose early thanks to the current emergency. 

“How’d it go?” she asks, trusting him to match her brisk stride.

“Not good. How about things here?”

“Not good.” She detours into the lab - which is still in shambles from the fight earlier - and grabs a fallen ICER off the floor, along with several spare magazines from the cupboard.

Lincoln’s eyes go wide. “Oh boy. That is …”

“It’s spread to the Inhuman population,” Jemma says, already heading back for the cafeteria/medical ward. Behind her, Lincoln curses.

“I should have stayed.”

She would love to agree with him; Lincoln’s medical expertise and experience with Inhumans has been invaluable to her in recent months - especially the latter - but he was needed in the field. “Even ignoring the plague he’s spreading, Cross is extremely dangerous. We needed our strongest people out there facing him - and you’re the strongest we have left who isn’t infected.”

“One of,” he corrects softly. She almost misses it under the opening of the doors. 

She pauses to meet his eyes. He’s got that expression, the one he’s been wearing around her more and more since the incident last month with the child infected by the transformative crystals. It’s the closest he’ll get to giving her a real apology for the way he treated her before that.

She has patients to tend to.

She heads straight for Skye’s bed, figuring she’s the most dangerous of the Inhumans suffering from Cross’s fever. Lincoln trails behind her.

“Cross is too powerful,” he says. “We barely made it out of that fight alive.”

He tenses but doesn’t move to stop her when she puts the barrel of the ICER to Skye’s chest. 

Jemma hesitates. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Skye is smiling dreamily at them, too lost in her fever to worry about the weapon or the tense conversation. “Jello wrestling!” she crows loudly. Actually, she might be paying attention to the conversation. Maybe.

Lincoln nods once. “I contacted the elders on the way back. If Cross is endangering other Inhumans …” He glances down to Skye, who’s trying to twist out from under the gun now. There are tears leaking from her eyes thanks to the pain. The lights overhead are starting to shake. “They said to do whatever it takes. And it’s not like they don’t know…”

“Of course,” Jemma says curtly. She pulls the trigger, knocking Skye out. Jemma hands off the ICER and magazines to the closest medic, along with orders to knock the Inhumans out and that Dr. Reed is in charge until she returns.

She and Lincoln are in the hall again before he catches her arm. It’s … new. He may feel bad for his distrust - which was completely understandable (not that she‘s told him so; it‘s understandable, but it still hurt) - but she is the living embodiment of a weapon built to kill him. He hasn’t touched her since … well,  _ever_ actually. Not even before the weapon merged with her.

“Are you okay to do this?” he asks.

She considers him carefully. “Are you asking because killing someone is a huge undertaking,  _especially_  for a doctor, or are you asking because you’re afraid once I get a taste for killing Inhumans, I won’t stop?”

His breath catches in his throat for several long seconds. “Can it be both?” he asks finally.

“You know,” she says gently, “we’re going to have to get past this eventually.”

“What?” he asks innocently.

She narrows her eyes at him. “You  _know_  what.” Her sharp tone is a mistake. It has him pulling back in fear, though he tries hard to hide it. She sighs. “I’m not going to hurt you. I think I’ve made that clear, but if you still don’t trust me, then you should probably remain here and help the others.”

She turns her back on him and heads for the garage. She makes it ten steps before he catches up to her and she can finally release the breath she’s holding.

“For the record,” he says, “I always knew you wouldn’t hurt me. Anyone who can make getting Indexed fun, can’t possibly be a mindless killing machine. I just had to know if you were still that person.”

She’s not sure how fun she could have made it, especially given how much Skye complained about the procedure when she went through it, but she did try her best to put Lincoln at ease - he was understandably fearful when he woke up in SHIELD’s care - and she thought she succeeded. For a minute there, until he found out about Skye’s plans, she thought he might not completely hate her.

The weapon changed all that.

“And?” she asks.

He grins at her. “Definitely still that person.”

Something about the way he says it makes her blush. His smile grows.


	3. not wonderland (jemma/grant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the "give me a sentence and I'll give you the next five (or more)" meme. The prompt: "She and I are going shopping. You, you're holding the bags."

"She and I are going shopping. You, you're holding the bags."

Ward - or the person who looks remarkably like Ward - growls, but doesn’t protest.

Raina - or, again, the person who looks remarkably like Raina - smiles and laces her arm through Jemma’s. She’s surprisingly adept at keeping her spines from sticking her, even at such close proximity. “He’s not good for much but manual labor,” she laments. “A little too blood thirsty for anything else.”

Jemma throws a look over her shoulder at the Ward look-alike. He’s definitely got murder in his eyes, and it’s … odd to see the expression on his face. The Ward in her reality is so much better at hiding his feelings. Or maybe this version just doesn’t have any reason to, enslaved as he seems to be to the Inhumans.

“I’m thinking some nice florals,” Raina’s saying. “Light, airy fabrics. Basically the opposite of that ugly rock that dropped you here. The best way to set your troubles behind you, is to start fresh with a whole new wardrobe. And, lucky for us, you only have the clothes on your back.” She smiles, bright and friendly.

Jemma tries to return it, but doesn’t quite succeed. She’s still trying to get a hang on what’s even happening here. Alternate universe? Inhumans ruling the world? Ward enslaved? Raina being  _nice_? It’s a lot of information to assimilate in a short period of time.

Luckily, Raina doesn’t seem to notice. Her already overlarge pupils expand further, her expression goes slack, and her grip on Jemma’s wrist grows just shy of too-tight. 

It passes as quickly as it began. The Raina that emerges from the vision looks quite a lot more like the Raina Jemma’s familiar with. It’s not as comforting as Jemma would like.

“Ward?” Raina sing-songs, never taking her eyes off Jemma. “Run on ahead and bring the car around. We’ll catch up.”

Ward does as he’s told, shooting a glare at Raina’s back as he passes them by. His expression turns assessing for the split-second it lands on Jemma before he’s jogging away. Raina promptly turns, forcing Jemma to do the same as she follows Ward at a more sedate pace. She lets out a small, contemplative hum, and, when she doesn’t follow it up with anything, Jemma asks, “Yes? Has something -  _will_  something happen?”

“I was just thinking. He’s far too human for me, but there  _is_  something appealing about watching him work. Don’t you agree?”

Jemma follows Raina’s gaze to Ward, who’s far ahead of them now. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Raina pats her hand. “You will. Don’t worry about asking permission. You’re free to use him however you wish. And a little physical release is just the thing for someone in your condition. 

“Now, as I was saying, I think muted colors, nothing too-too, if you catch my meaning.”

Jemma nods along, voicing her agreement when appropriate. She’s trying her hardest not to think about what Raina meant or what she might have seen to cause her to say those things. 

Minutes later, when Ward holds the car door open for her, Jemma’s cheeks burn under his stony gaze and she’s forced to endure an entire car ride of Raina’s smug smiles. She needs to find a way to get home soon, or this alternate universe might drive her insane. (Or, worse, drive her to do something she’s afraid she won’t entirely regret.)


	4. second time around (jemma/grant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the "give me a sentence and I'll give you the next five (or more)" meme. The prompt: “The only easy day was yesterday.”

“The only easy day was yesterday.”

“Bitch,” Bobbi says under her breath.

“I’m going to pretend you’re talking to your leg,” Jemma says, used to complaints and even threats every time she recycles May’s old training mantra on Bobbi. “Or Agent 33.”

Bobbi grins, her hands moving slightly forward on the bars in anticipation of her next shaky step. “Ward, actually.”

Jemma smiles to herself as she makes note of Bobbi’s increased stamina; she’s progressing better than expected in her physical therapy. (Soon, she might even be up to throwing that chair she keeps threatening.) But mention of Ward has Jemma’s mind spinning off to other matters.

Ward is still high on her list of priorities, but he’s no longer her _top_ priority. That, unfortunately, is the Inhumans. Useful as millennia of alien knowledge may be, the price - focusing her attentions on erasing the Kree’s mistakes rather than on Ward - is a little high for Jemma’s taste. Still, she’s stuck paying it. But if she can somehow manage both at once…

Thoughts of yesterday - both the immediate and the more distant - buzz around her brain, and the stone is offering up the necessary knowledge almost before she makes the leap to how easy it would be to kill both the Inhumans and Ward, if only she could somehow do it earlier.

It’s not _easy_ after that - there’s still SHIELD to hide her true designs from - but with the stone feeding her knowledge, she manages time travel by the end of the year. It’s only bad luck that HYDRA gets wind of her project and Ward jumps in just as the machine’s powering up.

Bitch, indeed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“We’re doing everything we can,” a dead woman says. “Frankly, we’re doing more than we would for any other agent.” Hand.

Jemma staggers, not from the physical shock of finding herself in a body two years too young, but from the mental disparity. The stone is gone. She can’t feel its vastness on the edge of her thoughts, can’t tap into its wealth of knowledge. She is alone.

She wants to scream in anguish. She wants to dance for joy.

“Simmons?” Skye asks.

Jemma has spent months schooling herself not to cringe back from Skye’s touch, but she doesn’t quite manage it now.

“Agent Simmons?” Hand asks. “Is everything-”

She’s on the Bus, Jemma realizes. Which means Ward is here. She grabs a gun from one of Hand’s men and brings it up just as Ward levels his own at her.

Several people step back (May physically puts Fitz and Skye behind her), but Hand is not one of them. “ _What_ is going on?” she demands, sounding more put-out than concerned.

Ward ignores her. “You’re looking a little unsteady there, Simmons.”

“As if you care,” Jemma says.

“Quick question: are you still crazy?”

She blinks, genuinely surprised. Not by his words - he’s well aware by now of her connection to the stone and has enjoyed needling her with similar comments whenever they cross paths - but that he’d ask at all.

“We are-”

“And answered,” Ward sighs, looking disappointed.

“-no longer one.”

His eyebrow quirks up, either at her answer or the way she shifts her shoulders uncomfortably, she can’t tell. Her body feels _wrong_ without the stone’s presence supporting her. How did she live this way for so long?

“And you’re not happy about that,” he says. It’s not a question.

“I am not going to ask again,” Hand warns. “But I _will_ order my men to shoot you both so we can sort this out later.”

“Simmons has this thing lately where she wants to kill me,” Ward says, never taking his eyes off Jemma. “It’s actually kind of flattering that she makes time in her genocide plans just for me.”

“ _What_ are you talking about?” Skye asks, obviously having had enough. “Coulson is missing and the two of you are acting _crazy_.”

Right. Coulson’s abduction. That does explain the presence of Hand and her people on board.

Ward smiles. It is not a comforting thing. “The two of us just dropped in from about two years in the future, and Simmons is having some trouble adjusting, am I right? Or is that just because of the separation thing?”

Jemma grits her teeth. He’s not wrong, but she doesn’t exactly want to show weakness in front of him. (Though it’s obvious she already is. Drat.)

“You’re from the future?” Fitz asks.

"Sending consciousness back into a younger body is just easier than transporting matter," Jemma says, preempting the question she knows he'll ask. 

"Plus it means less chance of getting killed by our younger selves," Ward says practically.

“Why would you come back to _now_?” Skye sounds frightened. Jemma doesn’t entirely hate that.

“Coulson’s gonna be _fine_. He’s at an old testing site in the Mojave Desert.” Ward seems to enjoy Jemma’s confusion. “I can be nice.”

She scoffs and makes the mistake of rolling her eyes. He’s on her in a heartbeat, pressing the gun she stole - _not_ an ICER like his - into her sternum. His arms are twisted with hers, keeping her in place.

May is still shielding Fitz and Skye. She trusts Ward, so much that she apparently believes he won’t shoot Jemma. Fitz and Skye are both calling for calm and showing very little themselves. Hand is giving orders for men to look into Ward’s Mojave Desert claim.

Though everyone is concerned, no one is interfering in whatever is going on between Jemma and Ward.

“You want it back?” he asks.

She doesn’t have to ask what he means, it’s clear from his expression he means the stone. He must feel how her heart races at the thought. Yes, being free of its influence is wonderful, but it’s also the worst feeling in the world. She feels alone and wrong and _empty_.

But this is _Ward_. She can’t trust him.

He tips his head to one side, looking annoyed with her lack of answer. “You help me fix a few things, I’ll help you fix a few things. Deal?” Garrett, he means. If she helps him with Garrett, he’ll help her with the Inhumans. Or at least with reuniting with the stone.

Her initial thought, that she would _never_ help him, is instantly undermined by his earlier words. He gave up Coulson’s location. He doesn’t need Coulson’s intel - not that Coulson has any - because he already knows the location of the GH-325. It will be easy, knowing what he knows, to storm the base and get the miracle cure before the explosion buries it.

Jemma’s breath hitches in her throat. That’s not the only thing in the base though. It’s so named for the source of the GH-325, the Guest. She may be disconnected from the stone, but she knows in her bones that it would want to reach him if it could. And Jemma can.

“Deal,” she says, the word slipping off her tongue before she can think better of it.

Ward steps abruptly back, leaving his ICER in her hands and taking the traditional gun for himself.

“Now that that’s settled,” Hand says, “would either of you care to explain _what’s going on_ to the rest of us?”

Ward turns the wrong direction to face her, taking in the whole lounge as he goes. “I mentioned the two years thing, right?” he asks when he’s finally looking Hand in the eye.

“Yeah!” Fitz says angrily. “And what the bloody hell could’ve happened in two years to have the two of you at each other’s throats?”

“For the record, she’s at my throat, but I’m not at hers. You’re more useful alive,” he says, flashing her a cheeky grin before turning his attention back to Hand. “So, two years.”

“A lot has changed, I imagine?” Hand asks. Jemma’s fairly certain she doesn’t entirely believe the whole time travel thing.

Ward smiles. “Hail HYDRA.”

There are a truly staggering number of HYDRA agents on board the Bus. So many that Jemma thinks she might’ve been wrong, the first time around, to blame Hand for how little luck they had finding Coulson. This time though, she’s grateful for them. They make it very easy to take control and get things moving in the right direction.

She’s going to reunite with the stone, free the Guest from SHIELD’s hands, and finally see an end to the Inhuman threat. Sure, she’s going to have to put up with Ward to do it, but so far, having him on her side isn’t so bad at all.


	5. monster under the bed (jemma/skye gen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for that "give me a sentence and I'll give you the next five of a fic" thing on tumblr. (I fail at keeping to five sentences, but here I did better than usual.) The sentence in question, came from shineyma.

"Did you feed the monster under your bed?"

“I’m not a child,” Jemma muttered petulantly. “And you’re not supposed to be here. May will be angry.”

Skye gave a little tug of her hair - not to hurt, to be friendly - before smoothing her brush over the spot. “So we won’t tell her. Now, did you feed it?”

Jemma’s eyes slipped shut at the imprecise metaphor and stayed closed. “Yes,” she said, the word slipping out on a sigh.

“Talk about things we’re not supposed to do,” Skye muttered.

Jemma’s mouth twisted in a frown and she leaned away from Skye’s touch. The pillow rose up to meet her and her body seemed to curl up on its side without her permission.

Skye sighed. “You know I don’t mean it like that.” She wrapped her fingers around one of Jemma’s hands. “I’m scared of what it’s gonna do to you if you keep letting it in.”

It was already in though. The monster, as Skye called it, wasn’t under the bed. It was inside Jemma. That’s why they kept her to her quarters and drugged her food to keep her docile. They couldn’t risk that the fragment of the Kree weapon still inside her would gain control of a capable host. 

Not that their precautions had done much good. Jemma’s impression, from her broken memories of the last few hours, was that the weapon was more than capable of causing havoc through her, no matter her physical state.

“I was bored,” she said. There wasn’t much for her to do, cut off from the lab, and the hours seemed to crawl by when she couldn’t even find the strength to move from her bed. Was it really any surprise that she’d taken to poking the alien entity residing in her subconscious? “I didn’t mean to let it out.”

Skye ran a soothing hand over her hair. Somewhere deep inside Jemma was a dark disgust. She ignored it. 

Jemma had just endangered the entire base, and yet here Skye was, keeping her company and soothing away her fears. Jemma turned her hand over under Skye’s to squeeze back, earning her a warm smile. Skye was a good friend. Jemma wouldn’t waste what little stolen time they had together entertaining the weapon’s desires.

That was for after Skye left her alone again.


	6. crimes of mortal men (jemma/grant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from Toto's "Don't Chain My Heart."

It’s not unusual for Jemma to wake up in the lab, but it is certainly unusual for her to wake up strapped to a bed and under quarantine in the lab.

They really, _really_ shouldn’t have brought her back upstairs.

“Fitz!” she gasps the moment she sees him. He jumps up from his chair the moment she speaks, pressing his hands to the glass like he’s trying to reach her.

“Jemma.” He sounds like he’s been yelling. She’s not surprised, with all that’s been going on. She’s also not surprised to see his earnest expression close off and his hands fall to his sides.

“ _Fitz_ ,” she says again, not daring to raise her voice. “ _Please_. We don’t have much time before it takes control again.”

His fingertips just brush the glass. It’s better than running off, at least. She tries to sit up so she can see him properly, but pain spikes in her head the minute she moves. Black spots bloom in her vision as the pain lightnings down her spine and it’s all she can do to just hold still, hoping it passes.

“It’s okay,” Fitz says. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” He helps her lay back, his fingers warm against her skin. He broke the quarantine for her.

Her vision’s still blurry and her breathing’s too fast, but she manages a weak, “Hello.”

He brushes the hair from her forehead. “Hello.” He looks like he might cry. “You’re okay. You- _It_ threw you against the walls of Vault D. You’re pretty banged up.”

“Like Ward,” she sighs, then remembers he didn’t know about Ward being in the Playground then.

She leans her temple into his palm and tries to reach for him in return, but her wrists are strapped to the bed rails. She twists her arms in the soft, padded loops, and sees blood under the nails of her left hand.

“I killed Stevenson,” she says softly. He wasn’t a friend, was attacking them even, but his crimes didn’t mean he deserved to die. She swallows down bile as she tries to erase the memory of his sightless eyes staring up at her, the feeling of his pulse slowing under her hands. All simply because he was an Inhuman.

“No,” Fitz says. “ _No_. It wasn’t you. It was whatever- whatever’s inside you. We’ll get it out. I promise.”

She shakes her head against his hand, forcing herself to look away from the blood. “It’s not in me. It’s …” She searches for a metaphor. “It’s like taking remote control of a computer. I don’t know if whatever it did down in the vault hurt it too or if it just let me go while I was out, but I can still feel it. It'll be back soon.”

He pets her hair. “Coulson’s got the best scientists on _the Iliad_ working to help you. I’m sure Weaver’ll find a way to-”

“You have to get me away from it,” she cuts in. “The closer I am to the weapon, the stronger its control over me is. That's why it keeps finding excuses to get out of going on missions, it's afraid it'll lose its grip on me.” She shudders in a breath. “Promise me, Fitz. Promise me you’ll make them move me. I can’t-” Tears are streaming down her face now, her pain feeding the fear that threatens to overwhelm her. “I can’t be trapped again.”

He wipes away her tears with the pads of his thumbs and kisses her deeply, stealing her breath before he backs towards the door. “I’ll get the others,” he says. “Coulson’ll move you to-”

“No!” She winces at how loud her voice comes out. “Not Skye,” she says more softly. “It will sense her and …” She lets it hang, not wanting to think about what will happen if Skye comes too near her.

Fitz nods, his mind already a dozen steps ahead, and runs out. It’s mere minutes before he comes back with May, but it feels like eons.

“Simmons?” May asks cautiously, pausing in the doorway.

“ _May_ ,” Jemma all but sobs.

It all happens very fast after that, for which she’s grateful. The pain and the fear and the waiting for what she knows will happen eventually is driving her mad. And considering the last few weeks, that’s saying something.

They load her onto a quinjet - “Less secure for medical transport but faster than the jump jets,” May says - and Fitz holds her hand while the half dozen guards Coulson sent along sit in stony silence.

“We’ll reach _the Iliad_  soon,” Fitz promises.

It’s not soon.

They’re barely ten minutes out from the Playground when the entire plane shudders.

“We’ve got trouble!” May calls. “West!” One of the guards leaps from his post to join her in the cockpit. Just in time too, as the distinct sound of gunfire striking the outer hull sounds a moment later.

One of the guards has to pull Fitz away from Jemma to get him buckled in as the jet makes a heart-stopping drop. Jemma’s already sure her stomach is going to turn on her when one of the clamps holding her bed in place loosens. The guards do their best to brace her as May takes them into an emergency landing. She screws her eyes shut, her fingers white knuckled around the bars of the bed. She tries and fails not to think of a much longer fall.

Fitz is up and by her side before May’s called back for survivors. “Are you all right?” he demands, his hands searching for signs of injury.

There is some unknown enemy force likely bearing down on them right now, but nothing matters to Jemma more than _being on the ground_. “Fine,” she sighs, allowing herself to relax for the first time since she woke up.

“Not yet, you’re not,” May says. She’s climbing over the guards, gun in hand. “Stay down,” she says to Fitz and, to one of the guards, “Cover them. The rest of you with me.”

“May’ll handle it,” Fitz says, his hand in Jemma’s and his eyes following the guards. She keeps her gaze fixed on his face, on the bright shaft of light that appears and expands as the doors open. The way his pupils shrink and his mouth tightens. The way his skin pales as the first shots are fired and his mouth opens in a scream she doesn’t truly hear.

His hand never leaves hers as he pulls his gun. May probably insisted he bring one, just in case she got out of hand. She’s always looking after their little family. It doesn’t do much good though, as he throws it down a moment later.

“Always were the smart one,” Ward says. Jemma sighs. She’s really not surprised. Those must be his footsteps climbing the ramp and making her head ache.

“You recreated the Overkill Device,” Fitz says. Jemma has no hope of seeing Ward from this angle, so she watches Fitz’s eyes tracking him. He looks angrier than she’s ever seen him. His hand twists around hers, seeking a better grip. “And you _killed May_.” The rage practically radiates off him.

Ward hisses in a falsely apologetic breath. “Yeah. That-” He comes into Jemma’s field of vision just as he looks over his shoulder at what is doubtless some severe carnage. “I was hoping she’d last longer, honestly. But I guess it was just a pipe dream I’d get to torture the Calvary.” He shrugs and his eyes fall along with his shoulders, landing on her.

“Simmons is _sick_ ,” Fitz says quickly, anger nearly forgotten in the face of desperation. He leans over her, trying to get Ward's attention off her. “Ward, whatever you’re planning, you’re not prepared for this. Let us go. She’s gotta get to _the Iliad_ or she’ll-”

Ward’s hand brushes gently over her temple, softly but she still feels a spike of pain at the contact. It isn’t helped by the pounding of her pulse in her ears or the way her breath shakes. “They hurt you,” he says.

“No,” Fitz says. “That’s the thing. There’s this- this _alien entity_ inside her. It’s controlling her, made her hurt _herself_. You have to let me take her to some place secure before it takes control again. Otherwise there’s no telling what it’ll do. Do you hear me, Ward? She tore out a man’s throat with her bare hands. This thing is incredibly dangerous and we have to get it out of her. Let us _go_.”

Ward’s fingers curl in her hair. “You did this to yourself?” he asks.

“Down in Vault D,” she says around the lump that’s found its way into her throat. “You gave me the idea.”

He smiles in a half-sad, half-proud sort of way. “Oh, sweetheart,” he sighs and bends down to kiss her. It’s slow and lingering, as much for Fitz’s benefit as for hers. She doesn’t much mind. The brief tingles of pleasure she gets from each brush of his lips do wonders to combat her various aches and pains. When he eases back, he’s frowning. “That was the best you could come up with? Imitating my fake _suicide_ attempts?”

Despite his anger, he’s pulling at the straps on her wrists, for which she’s grateful. Fitz’s hand has gone numb in hers (Ward bats it away before he undoes that strap) and she avoids looking at him as Ward helps her up. She’d rather not guess what he’s thinking.

“They put me in a _cage_ ,” she says sharply, rubbing at her aching wrists. Just the memory of waking up down there, imprisoned again after only a few short months of freedom, is enough to have fear gripping her fragile human heart.

Ward’s hand slides over her back and he pulls her into his chest. “See, this is why I told you to get out of there sooner.”

She stiffens, not at all amused by his teasing.

He sighs. “I won’t let that happen again, all right?” He grips her shoulders so he can look at her when he says, “No one is caging you ever again.”

“You won’t win,” Fitz says, speaking up suddenly. He’s gripping the bedrail as tightly as she was during their fall and quite literally shaking with anger. “Whatever this is, whatever you’ve got planned, SHIELD will stop you,” he says to Ward. His expression lightens somewhat as it moves to her. “And you. They’ll find a way to free Jemma.”

“Fitz-” He pulls away when she tries to cover his hand with hers. She waits a tick for him to settle, to be sure he’s not about to try anything. There are a million things to say, but none of them will wipe that look off his face, so instead she turns to Ward.

He grins, amused by Fitz’s outburst, up until she pulls the ICER from his belt and shoots Fitz in the chest. Ward is frowning when she holds the gun out to him.

“Waste of a round,” he says as he returns it to its holster.

“Not if I’m planning on letting him live,” Jemma says, moving so as to indicate she wants down from the bed. He helps her get her feet before arguing; smart of him.

“Should I be worried? That look on his face was about more than just you siding with me.”

“He is my _best friend_. Or was.” It’s all very confusing. “Besides, I needed him to get out.”

“He’s in love with you,” Ward says dryly.

She presses two fingers to the spot between her eyebrows. She _knows_. It was the source of no small amount of agony for her over the year prior to her union with the weapon, and that augmentation has not cleared things up one bit. Perhaps if she’d been able to pursue a relationship before it happened and learned whether or not she loved him as simply Jemma Simmons. But she is not simply Jemma Simmons any longer. She loves Fitz dearly, but she is not _in_ love with him, and she certainly doesn’t love him enough to abandon her mission.

Ward, when she looks to him again, is only more displeased. _Oh joy_. His moods are the last thing she needs after the day she’s had. Honestly, if she had the power she would bring Stevenson back from the dead simply to kill him again for landing her in this mess.

She steps up to Ward, encircling his waist with her arms. It’s difficult given their discrepancies in height and the bulky tactical vest he’s wearing, but she works around it by catching her thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and letting her hands fall over the tight slope of his rear end. That cheers him up a bit.

“I’m not the woman he loves. Not anymore.” Saying it aloud, it feels like pounding nails in her own coffin. It also feels liberating, to no longer cling to who she used to be. The warring emotions leave her feeling lightheaded and she’s glad for Ward, strong and steady in her arms. “What I _am_ is a living weapon, already fully formed. I don’t need any adjustments of recalibrations or beta testing. What I _need_ is someone who knows how to properly use a weapon of my caliber.”

Ward’s fingertips dance along her spine. He’s playing cool and aloof, but he’s definitely not angry anymore. “You’re saying you want me to _use_ you?” he asks, not quite managing an innocent tone.

She uses her thumbs in his belt to pull him away as she steps back, out of his reach. “Repeatedly,” she throws over her shoulder as she heads for the ramp. She was right. There is certainly a great deal of gore down there. She’s sorry for that, truly. Human life has at least some value, but it's only natural that some will have to be lost in the cleansing.

He doesn’t follow her. “And Fitz?”

“Will tell SHIELD exactly what he saw. That you attacked. That the weapon took control of me again after you arrived. That I took back _just enough control_ to knock him out so you’d be inclined to spare him.”

Her neat cover doesn’t please him as much as it ought. “So you can go back into SHIELD if you have to.” His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s looking like he wants to hit someone. If Fitz weren’t on the opposite side of the bed, she rather thinks he’d be kicking him.

“Only if I have to,” she soothes. She returns to his side, sliding one hand along his arm. She isn’t simply with Ward because his goals align more closely with her own than anyone else she knows, though that’s no small part of it. He reminds her of herself. He was molded into a weapon, left behind by his master, kept in isolation, and, perhaps most importantly of all, he’s lonely. He hides it incredibly well, but she’s been alone since before humans discovered the wheel. Takes one to know one.

That deep, down in his bones loneliness practically rolls off him now. He thinks he’s learned to live with it, but she knows better. There is no living with it, only a slow kind of death.

She cups his face in her hands and forces him to bend so she can press her forehead to his. “I have no plans to leave you again.”

He makes no outward sign of it, but she can feel his relief. Instead, he catches her around the waist and drags her up onto his hip like a child. “Good,” he says simply. “Because I don’t have any plans to let you go.”

She frowns teasingly as he carries her from the jet. “I have told you how I feel about cages.”

He laughs. “I wouldn’t dream of caging you.”

It’s a pretty lie, and one she’ll let him get away with so long as he never proves it false. If he does, she’ll deal with him far more effectively than she did SHIELD. For now though, she intends on enjoying her freedom thoroughly.


	7. spoils (jemma/grant)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” he says, “you’re trying to kill Skye.”
> 
> “Not _just_ Skye,” she says sharply. That is a gross mischaracterization of her motives. He makes it sound like she’s acting out of common jealousy. She _loves_ Skye, as much as she ever did. That’s why she has to do this. “And I’m saving her for last,” she adds. “That way I’ll be able to do it quickly, cleanly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated **Mature** at the very least but probably **Explicit** would be safer.

Small, cold room. Bright light overhead to shine on her crimes. Handcuffed to the table. Jemma wishes she could say this situation wasn’t familiar to her, but it really, really is. Coulson kept her in a room like this for nearly a day before he gave up hope - most of it anyway - and threw her in Vault D.

“Sorry about the wait,” Ward says as he enters. “We picked up some pretty interesting stuff during that raid.” He slaps a pair of gloves down carelessly on the corner of the table and smiles at her. “Other than you, I mean.”

She rolls her eyes. Coulson was moving her out of the Playground. To where, he wouldn’t tell her, but she doesn’t think it was only to put some distance between her and the weapon. She was practically shoved into the back of that truck, sandwiched between shipping crates with two guards awkwardly watching her every move from their positions at the door. Not exactly standard transport for a dangerous prisoner.

Ward flops down across from her like he’s lounging on a couch instead of preparing to interrogate her. His legs splay out, not touching hers, but close. No one’s willingly come so near to her in weeks. “So,” he says, “you’re trying to kill Skye.”

“Not _just_ Skye,” she says sharply. That is a gross mischaracterization of her motives. He makes it sound like she’s acting out of common jealousy. She _loves_ Skye, as much as she ever did. That’s why she has to do this. “And I’m saving her for last,” she adds. “That way I’ll be able to do it quickly, cleanly.”

“You’re learning, improving yourself,” he says, his breath coming out in a harsh approximation of a laugh. “Of course you are.”

Coulson used to say similar things. He’d talk about her like she was some alien _thing_ , only playacting at being human.

“Same old Simmons.”

His words startle her. No one’s called her Simmons in weeks. Fitz calls her Jemma still, pleads with her or speaks to her as if he thinks she’s trapped inside herself, but the rest of them have all but given up.

“You think so?” she asks, genuinely curious how he came to that conclusion.

“I’ve seen Coulson’s files on you - don’t ask,” he adds proudly. “Weaver’s transferred her old emissary-of-an-alien-race theory from him to you. They think you’re a _monster_.” He twists her own insult like a knife thrown back at her. “That’s a quote, by the way, straight from the reports. You wanna know which one of them said it?”

She looks away. He’ll tell her or he won’t, just like he’ll kill her or he won’t. (Torture, she knows, is a given.) What she wants won’t make a bit of difference and she isn’t about to give him the satisfaction of her pleas.

He tips his head, trying to catch her eye. “They’re wrong,” he says softly. _That_ gets her to look at him. His smiles is friendly, but his eyes are hard. He’s not hiding any of what he kept hidden back in the days when she thought they really were friends. “They think you’re being controlled or that you’ve been changed but…” He shakes his head and leans over the table, flexing his hands absently. She wonders if he’s going to take hers in some weak attempt at implying understanding. She’s not sure she hates the idea. “That’s not what I see. The rest of the team, they keep expecting you to be that helpless girl from the Bus, untrained, untested. They don’t remember - don’t _want_ to remember - that you’re the one who was _proud_ of shooting Sitwell, who wanted to cut Randolph open - _just a little_. They didn’t see you kill Bakshi without batting an eye.”

If he expects her to show remorse, he’ll be disappointed. Bakshi _was_ a monster.

“What are you saying?” she asks roughly. Her throat’s gone dry listening to him list her sins.

He shrugs. “I don’t think that rock or whatever changed you, I think it _freed_ you.” He leans back casually, spreading his hands wide. “Fun, isn’t it?”

Ward is a master manipulator, she’s well aware of that, but that doesn’t make him wrong. She shifts, wishing his words didn’t have the effect on her they do. She blames Coulson. If only he’d _tried_ to understand.

“What are you trying to accomplish here, Ward?” she asks, hoping to change the subject. “Or do you just enjoy talking to your prisoners until they beg you to get the torture started already?”

“Oh no, Simmons,” he says, leaning across the table with a sharp grin. “This is something special, just for you.”

Her nails dig into her palms as her heart beats loudly in her ears in anticipation of whatever he’s planning next.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Skye’s eyes shut at the sound of Fitz’s hands striking one of the ancient file drawers.

“You never should have moved her in the first place!” he yells.

“Fitz,” May says gently, “you know why we had to-”

“No! I _don’t_!” He stalks back to the center of Coulson’s office. “I don’t know why you had to separate her from her _entire life_. How do you expect her to get better if she doesn’t have anything to get better _for_?” He throws his arms out, directing the question at any of them willing to answer. None of them are because none of them _can_.

Skye’s eyes drop to the floor when Fitz looks her way. She’s not happy about the decision - especially since it was made in part for _her_ safety. She’d rather have Simmons than be safe, but that’s not really an option anymore.

“You don’t,” Fitz says, his voice like lead. Skye winces at the sound and forces herself to face him. Selfishly, she’s relieved to see his accusing expression is all for Coulson. “You’ve given up on her. That’s why you tried to hide the transfer from me, isn’t it?”

“No,” Coulson says immediately, “we are _always_ going to hope there’s some way to get Simmons back-”

“Then _why_ -”

Coulson steps forward, his voice rising to cut off Fitz’s outburst. “Because there’s no guarantee we even can. You refused to accept that she was gone when she was in the 0-8-4 and you’re refusing to accept it now.”

“ _She came back!_ ”

“Do you really believe that?” That’s May, calm and sad and cutting through all the anger like a knife. Her mouth thins into a tight line as she takes Fitz’s upper arm in a comforting grip. “Do you really believe that Simmons would murder five innocent people? Or create diseases for genocide? Or harvest organs from corpses? That … _person_ may have Simmons' face, but can you really look me in the eye and tell me you believe it’s her?”

Fitz’s mouth works soundlessly. He pins them each with a furious stare and stalks from the room without another word.

“I’ve got him,” Skye says, figuring it’s best if the grown-ups say whatever they need to alone.

Fitz is fast when he’s pissed. He’s already moping in the lab when she gets there, with his chin cradled on his arms and the poor lab techs huddled in the corner like the don’t know what to do. Skye throws a thumb over her shoulder. This is private time.

“Did you know?” he asks once they’re alone.

She comes around the table so she can lean down to his level. “Not until she was already on the truck.”

He nods - much as he can anyway - like he figured as much. “Do you think he’s right?”

She bites her lip, not sure what to say.

Fitz sighs. “Yeah.” He pushes up to go, but she catches his wrist.

“Hey! No! You asked what I think and here it is: I think I want Simmons back. The _real_ Simmons. But I don’t know how to get that any better than you do and-” She looks over his shoulder, her eyes finding the fridge where she stored the pieces of Inhumans she’d killed. Her grip on his arm relaxes and she sags against the table. “Our job is protecting people. Simmons once _jumped out of a plane_ to do just that, so I’m having a really hard time seeing any of her in that woman the rock spit out.”

“But what if she is?” Fitz asks without much force. He rests his elbows on the table and holds his hands in front of his face, staring like he doesn't recognize them. “What if she’s in there, trapped, and she can’t get out and now …” He drops his arms. “She tried to kill Ward.”

Skye’s heart stutters.

“In the Arctic, when we rescued Peterson and Lincoln. She wanted to _protect_ us from him.” He shrugs helplessly. “And now he’s got her. He didn’t even know Bobbi and look at what he did to her. What do you think he’s gonna do to Jemma?”

This time, when he walks out, Skye doesn’t go after him. She doesn’t have any answers for him, but for the first time since all this started, she’s actually hoping that rock killed her best friend because she really doesn’t want Simmons facing him again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The bright morning air fills with screams made tinny by the tablet’s speakers. Grant watches the news footage from Markham’s op in South Africa as he goes through his morning push-ups. Each time he comes up, his smile grows a little more as sunlight reflects off his penthouse’s newest decoration. The berserker staff looks right at home hanging over his dresser. So much so that he considers sending Coulson a thank you gift - he practically gift wrapped the thing, transporting it like that.

“I used to watch you do this.”

He taps the mute and cocks an eyebrow Jemma’s way. “Did you?” he asks, lowering himself again.

She’s on her stomach, curled in his rumpled sheets and looking thoroughly despoiled. Her hair’s a messy halo in bright light from the windows and that pleased little smile on her face makes him want to pin her beneath him again.

“When you were in Vault D,” she says, her head tipping lazily to one side on her arm.

“Coulson didn’t give you enough work to keep you busy?” he teases, mentally filing away that information for future use.

“He gave me plenty.” She leaves it at that and he lets her. She was a terrible interrogation, for the short time he actually tried. She’s happy to keep her secrets and too damn dedicated to this mission of hers to let little things like torture scare her into cooperating. Lucky for them both, he’s more than willing to let her kill as many Inhumans - or humans too, if she’d like - as she wants, so long as she works _with_ him instead of _against_ him. The unexpected fringe benefit of having her in his bed wasn’t part of the deal, but it keeps her close and he can’t say it’s not fun.

He finishes his push-ups and stands. “You have a favorite?” he asks.

“Hm,” she says, stretching like a cat. “I liked the part when you were on the bed.”

“Did you?” he asks, climbing back onto the mattress. His weight makes her tip his direction, but he keeps her in place with firm hands along her ribs.

“I meant on the _edge_ of the bed. Those reverse push-up things.”

“Tricep dips,” he supplies, throwing one leg over her so he can straddle her thighs.

“Yes, those,” she sighs, content.

“How about downward dog?”

She turns her head just far enough that he can see her eye roll. “That was a _terrible_ segue.”

“Was that a no?”

She faces the windows again. “No.”

He grins even though she can’t see and hops backward off the bed, dragging her with him by her ankles. She shrieks joyfully and laughs while he positions her just right.

She’s still gotta be sore from last night, so he takes it slow. The new angle helps, he thinks, but she still needs time. He presses kisses along her spine, whispers encouragements in her ear while he nuzzles her hair and leaves stubble burns on her neck. By the time she’s screaming his name, the sun has moved, its light reflecting sharply off the staff into his eyes again. He smiles against her shoulder, his hands wrapping around her hip and ribs as he finishes. He’ll definitely need to communicate his thanks to Coulson.

 


	8. hands that hurt, hands that heal (lincoln/jemma)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then there were two.

Fitz is gone, captured by one side or the other - or the _other_  (Jemma’s lost track of all the factions operating now) - and it’s just the two of them.

The walls of today’s safe house are paper-thin and the air chill. Every footstep over the raw, wooden floorboards is an angry creaking. The hinges on the doors and cupboards whine. Fitz used to fill the silences with chatter. She didn’t respond half as much as she used to, but he didn’t seem to mind. For which she was grateful. She needed his constant, familiar voice to fill in the spaces and soften the sharp notes of everyday life.

She never used to notice floorboards or hinges, but it’s all like thunder now. She’s raw, oversensitive since being torn apart and pieced back together cell by cell.

“Are you hurt?” Lincoln asks. He’s hovering next to the table, torn between sitting - _finally_ quieting down - and inspecting her.

She realizes she’s clutching her upper arm. It’s the same spot May caught her by earlier. Jemma hopes she’s okay; if the bolt of electricity Lincoln shot at her was as painful as it was impressive, she’s probably feeling rather raw herself right now.

Jemma uncurls her fingers, only to curl them up again on air in her lap. She wants to hide the bruises she can feel pulling at her skin - bruises far older than her altercation with May - but forces herself to keep still as he examines her arm in the dim light. When he’s satisfied there’s no new damage, he settles into the other chair with a sigh.

“I’m sorry about Fitz.” He stretches his long legs out to one side, trying to ease muscles that must be aching after the fight. He’s about to say more, has been avoiding whatever it is all this time by fussing around the small space. Even knowing that, she can’t quite bear to let him say it.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

His eyes fly to her and he goes still, like she’s caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Why have you _been_ here? The other Inhumans hate me.”

“Not all of us,” he says quickly, defensively. He leans forward almost like he’s reaching for her but stops himself.

She dips her chin, inviting him to explain.

“There are a lot of conflicting theories about the artifact. Some people - the Elders included - agree with Jiaying that it’s dangerous. But some think it can help us.”

Jemma waits, and when no more seems forthcoming, she asks, “So why are you here?” He’s been there almost since the beginning. When Fitz broke her out of SHIELD custody, Lincoln was with him. Surely Fitz must have had a good reason for trusting him, and now that he’s gone, it seems important that Jemma know what that reason was. “I’m not the artifact,” she adds, in answer to his silence. “It broke me apart and took me in and pieced me back together, but I’m not _it_.”

He stares. There’s no other word for it. His eyes are steady on her. Whatever he may be thinking, he gives no sign, until finally he swallows and eases back in his chair. It creaks.

“I know, but the ancient texts are confusing. It’s possible you’ve become a part of something-”

Jemma’s eyes drift shut and she looks away. The Elders have demanded SHIELD hand her over for execution based on their interpretation of the Inhumans’ ancient texts. Lincoln’s more favorable reading won’t help her opinion of them.

He sighs. It’s loud, but not jarring the way most noises are. His voice too, is not painful like so many others. She chalks it up to his soothing bedside manner, which she saw a little of herself before she was locked away “for her own safety.”

If she’d been on the other side of things, she might have used the same logic. With so many Inhumans in the Playground these days and so many of them wary of the artifact, it made sense to separate her from the general population, much as Skye separated herself after her transformation came to light. And Jemma was grateful, honestly, to be free of all the onlookers and all the noise and people forever hugging her or grasping her hand or shoulder, but all of that didn’t make it hurt any less to be forcibly removed from the life she’d fought so hard to get back to.

Lincoln’s hand slips between hers in her lap, startling her out of her thoughts. His skin is rough, calloused, and very warm, but it doesn’t hurt. She’s so surprised - even Fitz’s touch often increases rather than decreases her discomfort - that she instinctively squeezes back. It’s rare for her to exert much force these days, adverse as she is to touch anything at all, and it feels good to use her muscles again, even a little.

He smiles somewhat sadly at her from his crouch. “I’m here because I’m trying to protect my people’s future.” His grip on her, gentle up to now, tightens when she might pull away. “No matter what you are or aren’t, I can’t imagine any good being built on the murder of an innocent woman. So even though I think you’re something special-” he pauses, looking momentarily lost before folding his other hand over theirs- “it doesn’t matter to me who’s right - the Elders or Coulson or even you. And yeah, I know you told Fitz you don’t think it left anything in you, I don’t care. I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you.”

He seems to be waiting for a response, but she can only manage a nod. Lincoln wasn’t exactly her friend prior to her ordeal. They’d met twice - once when he was terrified to find himself in SHIELD’s care and again when she joined the team aiding in securing _the Iliad_. And yet here he is, promising to keep her safe against the friends - the _family_ \- she endured the uprising alongside.

“Thank you,” she says, and means it more than those two words can express.

He squeezes again, in a heartening sort of way, and climbs to his feet. “You should sleep while you can. We’ll move once the sun sets.”

His hands slip from hers, leaving her feeling cold. It’s odd to feel bereft of touch these days and she finds herself staring at his hands.

“You should too,” she points out, “you’re the one who fought them off.”

“I’ll keep watch.”

She purses her lips. She’s well aware that he and Fitz have been excluding her from watch duty. It makes a frustrating kind of sense; she’s not been herself since coming back and they can’t risk her losing focus when she’s meant to be guarding against danger. But with only the two of them, she thinks guarding against danger less important than Lincoln’s health.

“You need rest,” she says. He’s back to stomping around, making more noise than she can stand.

“There’s only one bed,” he says from behind her.

She twists to face him over the back of the chair. “You don’t think I’m dangerous, but you’re not willing to sleep next to me?”

He rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

“No. You’re tired and hurt. You need sleep more than I do.”

He holds her gaze for long seconds before sighing. “Okay.”

Now that he’s given in, she heads for the apartment’s one bedroom, her footsteps light. She falters a little when she sees the twin bed shoved into one corner. She was expecting something bigger - big enough for two at least - but she can’t fault Lincoln for not anticipating her insistence that he join her.

“You sleep next to the wall,” he says, and the closing of the door is ominously loud in her ears.

She sets her shoes carefully at the foot of the bed, imprinting their location in her mind in case the worst happens and they do need to run. The rest of her clothes she keeps on. She’s grown accustomed to sleeping fully dressed lately and now, more than ever, is glad for the habit.

She climbs in on top of the blankets, pressing her back flush against the wall. Lincoln grins at her while he kicks off his own shoes, far less careful with them than she was with hers. “I don’t take up that much room.”

And he’s right. He lays on his side facing the door, same as her, and there’s room enough for a whole person between them. She shifts a little, allowing the indent in the mattress to help her lay more comfortably.

“I know,” he says suddenly into the quiet, “if it were anyone else, they’d be planning a rescue, but I’m not SHIELD. So I’m sorry, but we’re not gonna go on some daring spy mission to save Fitz.”

She shifts more onto her back so she can stare at the ceiling instead of the back of Lincoln’s skull.

“He wouldn’t want us taking the risk.”

Her, he means. Fitz wouldn’t want _her_ taking the risk. And perhaps Lincoln as well. They seem friendly enough, beneath the frayed nerves living on the run has left them with.

“I know,” she says and closes her eyes.

She thinks about Fitz, hopes he’s been taken by SHIELD because they at least will be kind to him. She thinks about Lincoln leading the way out of the train station, and the way she followed - _followed_ , as though her dearest friend wasn’t because of her being tackled to the floor and handcuffed. Months ago she was planning to kill Ward to protect her friends and now she’s willing to run from them if it means saving her own skin.

She’s become skittish and she doesn’t know if it’s her own weakness or something that _thing_ left her with. It put her back together, yes, and she wasn’t lying when she told Fitz she doesn’t think it left anything extra in her, but she wonders sometimes whether it put her together quite right. Perhaps the alignment is slightly off or there was a screw left over. She can’t shake the feeling she’ll one day topple to pieces like a poorly constructed bookshelf.

A feather-light tough on her hand wakes her from her doze. She hasn’t slept, not really, but more drifted in the dark for a while. It clings to her so that her eyes refuse to open and the touch turns more insistent, pulling at her hand. Lincoln - she recognizes his fingers, even while half-asleep - forces first one hand and then the other to uncurl from her arms. She whimpers as blood rushes in and feeling returns. There’ll be new bruises to replace the old soon.

“It’s okay,” he soothes, his voice coming from too far away for him to be lying next to her. He must have moved off the bed to the floor. She curls towards him and he keeps hold of her hand on top of the worn blankets. There’s still light beyond her eyelids, so she lets herself drift back to sleep, knowing they won’t be moving on from here yet.

She half-wakes up only one more time before night, when warm hands stop hers from pressing more bruises into her skin.


	9. and so we run (lincoln/jemma)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lincoln can't leave right away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers and also AU for 3x01.

After the hospital, Lincoln can’t really afford to go back to his apartment, but he can’t really afford _not_ to either. So he sprints through back alleys and thanks his lucky stars - not that they’ve been much use lately - that he was able to find a place so close to work. He doesn’t bother going in the front (too much chance of being seen) and instead heads up the fire escape.

“We gotta go,” he says as he climbs in the open window.

“Go?” she asks, sounding distracted. No wonder, she’s working - and, God, he’s gonna hate losing all this research, but they can’t afford to waste time packing it up. Her distraction ends when she sees him and she crosses the small space in a heartbeat. “What happened?”

He left his coat in a muddy puddle along the way, but some of the burn from having to run his powers so strong must’ve reached his clothes underneath. His shirt’s ruined and he probably looks like shit from the fight and the flight here. He’ll have to change and clean up or he’ll draw attention. “Damn,” he mutters, running for the dresser instead of letting her fuss.

“ _What happened?_ ” she demands.

“I don’t know.” He pulls his shirt over his head, but the damage means it gets caught along the way. “Skye came again, along with the big guy.”

“Mack.”

“Right.” Like he cares. He rips through the fabric; it’s not like he’s planning on keeping it as a souvenir. “I thought they were looking for more information on the monolith.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

That stops him. He wouldn’t, not _ever_ , and is ready to tell her so until he sees her. She’s leaning against the corner of the dresser, hands cupping her elbows tight and fear clumsily hidden on her face.

“No,” he says, brushing a hand over her cheek just because she needs it. “Only that I’d already told them everything I know.”

She smiles and it eases his conscience a little. The last time Skye came to him looking for answers, she ended up in tears and Lincoln nearly cracked. Would it really be so bad for SHIELD to know Jemma’s here? They care about her and she cares about them and if that were all it was, he thinks he would’ve told Skye long ago without hesitation, no matter Jemma’s fears. But she doesn’t just come asking after Jemma. She also comes asking him to join her and her Inhuman dream team. Lincoln’s not interested, and neither is Jemma.

When he found her in the ruins of one of the old Kree temples, he thought he’d walked right into a SHIELD operation, but then he really _looked_ at her. She was dirty and sleep-deprived, had been working for days on end trying to make sense of the technology the Kree left behind. Whatever the monolith did to her, it left her desperate to undo their work.

Lincoln got her out, got her cleaned up. He convinced her to use the science she already understood instead of killing herself trying to work the Kree stuff and offered himself up as her first test subject. What did he have to lose?

He grips her shoulders. He needed her then, more than she needed him for all it looked like the opposite. Not because he wants a cure, but because she gave him a purpose again. Hell, he got a job just because she needed funding and a place to sleep at night. Taking care of her brought him out of his woe-is-me funk and got him back in the world. She’s someone to talk to after long days, someone who understands both the life he’s running from and the one he’s trying to build, with her.

And now they have to start again.

“Some guy showed up - I don’t know if he was another Inhuman or an alien or something else, but he was tough.” He grabs a new shirt from his drawer and pulls it over his head, before reaching in for another change of clothes to stuff in a backpack. “I was exposed.”

She curses. Impressively. It’s super adorable with her accent. She rushes to the work table that takes up half the apartment.

“We’re traveling light,” he says over his shoulder while he stuffs some of her things into the bag.

“Well I have to take _something_ ,” she says, sounding as disappointed as he is to be leaving it all behind. He hears her clicking away at the computer as he goes to their tiny kitchen. They’ve got money set aside in case they ever have to run, but no point wasting it when they can bring along enough food for the first day or two. They’ll have to stay on the move longer than that. SHIELD will be looking for wherever he settles next and he’d like to put an end to these little visits of theirs if he can. He knows Skye means well, trying to protect him from things like this and to give him purpose, but all he sees when she offers is her mother.

Halfway to Jemma to pull her away from the work because he knows she won’t leave it behind willingly, he sits heavily on the bed. “Would they lie?” he asks.

“What?” She’s lost in what she’s doing again, worse than when he came in, and it takes her a few seconds to really notice him. “Would _who_ lie?”

“You know Skye better than I do, you know SHIELD. Would they lie?” It’s a stupid question - of course they would - so he amends it before her expression can grow too incredulous. “Would they set this up just to force me to come to them?”

He doesn’t have anywhere to go, really. His identity’s no use to him anymore and while there were once and still might be ways for Inhumans to get new ones, he’s not about to go to anyone else in their community. From SHIELD’s perspective, he’s pretty well stuck, and it’s only Jemma’s training and preparations for just this eventuality that keep him from running aimlessly. If it wasn’t for her, he might have been seriously tempted to take Skye up on her offer.

Jemma looks thunderstruck for a moment. “I don’t know,” she says, fingering a thumb drive. “Things had changed before I left. I’d have expected them to try something like reverse psychology before they resorted to base deception.”

“Reverse psychology never works,” he says dismissively. As if he’d believe it after all the effort Skye’s made into bringing him in.

She shrugs one shoulder and grabs up some of the blood samples to add to his bag. “Still. You’d think they’d at least try.”

“We don’t know that this was them. It could’ve been a real threat. He was blue? Spines like Raina’s for hair? Shot electricity?”

“Just because I was abducted by an alien rock doesn’t mean I know anything you don’t.”

He zips up the bag and throws it over his shoulder. “Other than about Asgardians and Kree and Chitauri-”

“I studied _one_ virus that _happened_ to be carried by a single Chitauri soldier.”

“More than I know!” He runs his hands over his face. They have this fight a lot, about their differing levels of expertise in their very similar fields, but now is not the time. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“Right.” She tucks the thumb drive into her bra and pulls her hoodie from the back of a chair before stepping back to look over the space that’s been their home for nearly three months. It’s cramped and in a horrible part of town, but it was theirs.

The place is set up to burn if they ever have to run, but his hands remain limp at his sides. He doesn’t want to see it go up in flames.

Jemma moves into his side, lacing her fingers with his. The frayed cuff of her jacket tickles his palm. She’s already got the hood pulled up for the trip. “We’ll start over. We’ll find a cure.” She sounds so much more certain than she did when they first moved in here, when she was sure she couldn’t even begin work without Kree tech backing her up. It pulls his attention away from what they’re leaving behind and settles it firmly on her. She squeezes his hand tight, smiling up at him. “Together.”

This is why Skye keeps coming back. She thinks he’s all alone, that he’ll be thankful for her offers of help. But so long as he’s got Jemma, even if she never finds the cure she’s so hell bent on, he’s got all he needs.

“Together,” he agrees. He sends a spark at a bottle sitting on the shelf over the table. It shatters, sending flames raining down. He barely pays it any attention, he’s too busy dropping a quick kiss to Jemma’s forehead. 


	10. driving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant's been taken by SHIELD - but he's not the only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon on tumblr prompted "things you said while we were driving."
> 
> This was posted to tumblr ages ago but I never got around to moving it here because it wasn't _as_ rock fic-y as the rest in this collection. Thanks to the addition of a follow-up chapter, it definitely belongs here now.

“Don’t worry,” Skye says, “we kept the Vault just the way you left it.” She’s become remarkably more annoying since shooting him, almost like it’s their first weeks on the Bus again. Except now she has superpowers and knows how to fire a weapon, so that sucks.

He lets his eyes slide away from Skye though and to Simmons, sitting directly across from him. “Which one of us do you think she’s talking to?”

He doesn’t expect an answer, so he’s more than a little surprised when she says, “Honestly, I don’t know.” Her chains rattle when she sighs and then again even worse as the prisoner transport van goes over a pothole. 

“Simmons,” Skye says - gentle, coaxing. She never gets to finish. Simmons turns to pin her with that cool gaze and it has Skye swallowing audibly. 

It’s not the first time today Grant’s seen someone - someone _powerful_ \- react to Simmons with fear. Tiny Jemma Simmons had a man twice her size with super strength running for the hills. Obviously Grant’s missed something.

“We’re not putting you in Vault D,” Peterson says. He at least doesn’t seem cowed by Simmons and Grant has to wonder if the guy was called into this fight for him or for her. “There’s a facility all set up for you on the _Iliad_.”

“So I can _be_ studied rather than study,” Simmons says dryly. “Yes, that sounds much more appealing. I’d rather have the Vault, thank you.”

“It’d be kind of cramped,” Grant says. He shrugs, letting his eyes travel slowly over every inch of her. She doesn’t squirm. “We could make it work though.”

Skye makes a gagging sound. “Don’t worry-” Grant doesn’t miss that she’s looking at him while she talks to Simmons- “we’re not gonna let him anywhere near you. We’re gonna find a way to help you.”

Simmons smiles sadly. “Like we found a way to help _you_? You know how this works, Skye. There’s no undoing it. The only thing to do is to move forward from this point.”

“So move forward! It doesn’t have to be like this! You can still come back!”

“Oh, Skye…”

“Wanna join HYDRA?” Grant asks. It gets about the reaction he expects: all eyes turning to him, varying looks of confusion-slash-hatred. “Seriously. If SHIELD’s not gonna let you play, I will.”

“You’re chained up,” Skye says. Which is just rude, he wasn’t talking to her.

“For now,” he says. 

And he couldn’t have planned it better himself because at that moment the whole van rocks from a blow that has it tipping onto its side. He catches most of Simmons’ weight when she falls, what little of it isn’t being held by the chain still holding her to the bench. 

“I’m serious, by the way,” he says while he both steadies her and delivers a kick to the side of Peterson’s head. Grabbing the guy’s gun and keys is easy. The first he pockets, the second he uses on himself before seeing to Simmons.

“I’ll want a lab.”

“Have as many as you want.” He moves to search Skye while Simmons rubs at her sore wrists. “So long as you help me piss of SHIELD, I’ll get you anything you ask for.”

She’s smiling when he turns back to her. “I don’t believe that will be a problem.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the next chapter for more in this 'verse.


	11. driving (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the one sentence fics meme (version 2!) an anon requested the driving 'verse. As such, these take place in the same universe as the previous chapter and you might want to check out [these headcanons](http://ilosttrackofthings.tumblr.com/post/132758367774/things-you-said-while-we-were-driving-please) over on tumblr, but they at least are not required before moving onward.
> 
> Also, these are in chonological order for easier reading. Enjoy.

 

 

**After**

She comes out of the monolith eight weeks after it took her, screaming and crying like a newborn because the cold air on her skin _hurts_ ; Fitz tries to hold her but she catches sight of Skye and scrambles back, terrified, because all she sees when she looks at her is how to tear her apart at the seams.

 

**Trip**

She doesn’t remember anything from her time in the monolith - there’s before and there’s after and the in between is just blankness.

 

**Reason**

“They’re _broken_ ,” she cries in frustration and Phil sadly opaques the barrier, knowing by now he won’t get a better answer as to her change of heart.

 

 

 

**Beauty**

She’s always been a little _off_ \- even at the Academy, where many of her fellow cadets enjoyed a good autopsy, being the youngest of the lot somehow made it wrong for her to do the same - but the monolith’s washed all that away; she no longer feels compelled to temper the awe and wonder she’s always secretly felt about cutting things apart and studying their insides, and Grant is _so_ accommodating about giving her opportunities to learn.

 

**Pride**

She spends days constructing the perfect sandwich with which to thank Ortilla for saving her from capture, effort which is well worth it when she gets to watch him grimace through eating the perfectly harmless lunch he’s certain will be his doom.

 

**Regret**

He doesn’t love Skye anymore - honestly he’s not sure now that he ever did - but there is a part of him that’s relieved Jemma seems determined to save her for last, to do her only when she has the experience and know-how to make it quick and easy.

 

**Passion**

She spent the afternoon bent over a microscope, pretending she didn’t notice Aldridge luring another fly into her web, and now, with a little alcohol in her veins, she wonders if she can make Ward’s eyes follow her the way the poor lab assistant's did her with only the power of a simple touch.

 

**Pretend**

“I’m not Kara,” she says - a little late seeing as she’s straddling him, but she’s already been twisted all up in knots by the monolith (yes, she is _aware_ of its influence), she’s not going to let him pretend she’s someone she’s not.

 

**Before**

They’re bobbing together in the open ocean for the second time in their lives when she confesses she always wished he’d kissed her that first time; he makes up for it with interest.

 

**Envy**

There’s a photo on Grant’s desk that Jemma never looks at directly and a name that, when she speaks it, inevitably results in severe casualties on SHIELD’s end.

 

**Dreaming**

She’s a light sleeper these days and when he crawls into bed after missions gone long, wakes easily and tries to explain her dreams to him - talks about the rotations of the stars and spirals of DNA in the same breath and he’s not sure even Fitz could make sense of what she’s saying anymore, but it serves to wipe away his bloody memories of the day and ease him down to sleep, so he lets her talk about what she likes.

 

**Greed**

When her voice is caught in her throat and she feels on the edge of shattering and Grant holds off, she smiles rather than beg, knowing the possessive way he holds her along with his increasingly frequent demands that she give more, give _all_ are because he’s already given all he has; they’re his way of saying “I love you.”

 

**Difficulty**

She’s the same (aside from the not wanting to kill him and the working for HYDRA and the careless murder) she’s _exactly_ the same Jemma Simmons she’s always been, but then wasn’t he the same Grant, even able to keep his cover up no matter how deep Lorelei burrowed into his brain?

 

**Weather**

He tears her from her work, crowds her into the wall - her people are fleeing and even his don’t seem pleased that they’re expected to stay, not that she can blame them with that storm brewing in his eyes; he can use all the intimidation tactics he likes, she will _not_ apologize for killing Kebo before he could transition.

 

**Peace**

Her face is unnaturally still thanks to the dendrotoxin delivered continuously via IV, but he can’t help running his knuckles down her cheek one last time before ordering, “Take it all,” and leaving her to the care of the doctors and the TAHITI machine recovered from SHIELD.

 


End file.
